Eye of the Storm
by ladyoflilacs
Summary: "And because Potter is not a boy, but a hurricane - sweeping up everything in the path of his devastation, entrancing even as he slowly rips himself apart - I am helpless to say no." LVHP one-shot for Ansketil. Complete.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but my own words.

**Summary:** "And because Potter is not a boy, but a hurricane - sweeping up everything in the path of his devastation, entrancing even as he slowly rips himself apart - I am helpless to say no." LVHP one-shot for Ansketil. Complete.

**Warnings: **Angst, sexual content, major character death.

* * *

Potter is a tornado. He is gale-force winds whipping at maximum speed, a vortex of energy, all-consuming and destructive. I wrestle him to the ground, this child made of dust and wind, and he surges up against me, snarling. I cannot hold him any more than I can hold the breeze between my fingers, and he slips through my grasp; we are rolling, we are writhing, we are bleeding and gasping.

We spill off the carpet and onto the hearth. Potter does not seem to notice the fire licking at our clothes - he is a creature born of death, green lightning surging through his veins; he has no use for fear - but I yank him up by his cotton shirt, drive him against the wall. Make no mistake: I will kill this boy one day. It will be an easy thing, in the end. I will see him suffer. I will laugh as I watch the life leave his green eyes - green with death, a reflection of the curse that will squeeze his lungs, his heart, until they cease to function.

But not tonight.

Tonight, his pulse will race beneath my teeth as they scrape against his throat, bruises blooming like petals across his pretty ocean flesh. He will gasp for breath, and the sounds that I tear from his lips will tear through me, this tornado of a child. He will curse me and damn me and worship my hands as they capture his skin, as they stroke the storm brewing inside of his body.

I whisper to him as I touch him. '_They begged, the same way you are begging now. What would they say if they could see you, Potter? Would they think you pathetic? Would they think you weak, if they knew how much you have given to their murderer?_'

'_I've given you nothing that I haven't taken from you first_,' he says, and I am dragged into his vortex, unwillingly, hatefully.

'_You are a fool_,' I say as I take him to my bed. _'You are disgusting, you are weak, you are easily manipulated.'_

He is, of course, none of these things. I do not tell him that he is as irrepressible as the storm raging inside his skin, that his lips, his eyes leave me with little choice but to devour him from the inside out. I do not tell him that there is nothing weak about him - that the feel of his body straining against my hands is like handling raw magic with my bare skin, powerful and completely out of my control.

I do not tell him how much I treasure these moments when he touches down in my arms, this boy, this tornado. I collect them, scars seared on the inside of my skin every time he touches me, every place that he has kissed my body. I gather them obsessively, as I gather any other sort of knowledge - the movement of his mouth against my ear, the shape and pressure of his teeth as they sink into my shoulder, the quiver in his stomach as my hands slide up his shirt.

I do not tell him he is beautiful.

Potter is a wildfire. I have him naked in my bed and I am almost reluctant to touch him, that I might burn my fingers on the light pouring out of his body. He pulls me onto him, covers my lips with his, and I am devastated by the feeling of his tongue in my mouth; I am trapped, I am spinning, I am overwhelmed.

I take him in my hand, an anchor. The feel of him surging into my touch, hot and desperate, is the only thing that is keeping me tethered to the earth. I stroke him, slowly, and he makes a keening noise that vibrates across my entire body. I whisper his name against his hip. He pretends not to hear.

When I enter him, I do not take him so much as I am consumed. He wraps his body around me, this boy, this wildfire, and the mewling pulled from his lips in this moment will be burned in my memory for many years to come. I am entranced by the tremble in his lower lip (_I cannot look away_), his quaking thighs (_I cannot look away)_, the bead of perspiration that slowly _(I cannot, shall not ever look away_) slowly rolls from his temple down the edge of his jaw.

For a moment, the winds quiet, the smoke clears, and there is only our breathing, ragged and harsh in the empty room, green eyes blinking up at mine in wonder.

And then Potter comes alive beneath me, around me, and I am lost.

* * *

Later, when I have disentangled myself from sticky skin and long, liquid limbs, I find Potter is staring at me.

'I think I'm going to kill you tomorrow,' he says, his voice soft.

My lips quirk with amusement. 'Are you?'

I expect to see anger flash across the face of this boy, this hurricane. I do not expect sadness, steeled over so quickly that I am not quite sure if I imagined it there. 'I know what you're planning. And I won't let it happen. I'll be there.'

_I will kill this boy, one day._ It is regrettable, I find, that it must come so soon - but that is something he must never be allowed to know, something that I can hardly admit even in the privacy of my own thoughts. 'I could kill you now,' I offer instead. 'It would be much simpler.'

Potter does not look away. 'I thought - I could maybe hold you, right now. Just for a little while.'

And because Potter is not a boy - he is a tornado, he has swept up everything in his path in his devastation, has entranced me with sick fascination as I watch him slowly destroy himself - I am helpless to say no. I am helpless to do anything other than allow him to enfold me in his arms, to stroke my back and kiss my face and ruin me.

My name is whispered to the darkness as we lie, pressed against each other. I pretend not to hear.

He is as fleeting as he is captivating, this boy, this natural disaster. Against my better judgment, I drift off to sleep with his warmth surrounding me; and when I next open my eyes, he is gone. The wrecked and windswept sheets are the only indication that he has ever passed through this place at all.

When I next see him, it is in broad daylight. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen him in the daytime - Potter does not need the day when he makes his own sunlight, this wildfire of a child. His eyes are somehow brighter in the sun, and he looks older - or perhaps that is merely a result of my knowledge of (_his mouth his teeth his trembling stomach_) what is about to happen.

It is a crowded street - Muggles bustling along their sidewalks, largely oblivious that the most powerful sorcerer of the century stands in their midst - but a few people have stopped and begun to stare at the two men with their strange robes, looking at each other in the middle of the street. My Death Eaters are lurking in the shadows, in the alleyways, watching silently; I have instructed them to hold back so that I might deal with Potter myself first.

'Harry Potter,' I say softly, and I look at him as though I loathe him.

_It will be an easy thing, in the end -_

'I can't let you,' he says. I can sense the magic thrumming in the air around him, this boy, this tempest.

'I know.'

Then Potter raises his wand, and it begins.

The boy puts up a good fight. He has clearly been trained since I last encountered him in a duel. But it is not enough to face Lord Voldemort. I play with him for a little while, teasing him with fleeting amounts of hope, thrilling in the crestfallen expression on his face when he realizes that I am not truly struggling, that he really has no chance against me.

'What the hell's the matter with you?' he cries at last, and I recognize from (_gasping swearing writhing begging)_ the look on his face that his frustration has finally been pushed to its limits. '_Fight_ me, you bastard!'

I slash my wand through the air, and he is nearly bowled over by the impact. Another step, another slash - his knees buckle with the force of my spell. Another step, and his shields fail, his wand soaring in an elegant arc from his fingers and into my waiting hand.

(_an easy thing_)

There is a split second when Potter's eyes are wide with shock and realization, and then I send him crashing to the ground. He screams (_to see him suffer_), and then he is thrashing across the pavement, face twisted in agony.

I am standing over him when I finally lift the curse. He is kneeling on the ground before me, panting. His dark hair is matted with blood, his face devoid of color. He manages to lift his head. There is a moment when our eyes meet - a moment where the smoke clears, the winds stop, and I feel the ghost of his lips against my neck.

My name is whispered to the cold sunlight, and I do not hear him, I do not -

(_in the end_)

I look away. I do not have the strength to watch as the light vanishes from green, green eyes (_the color of death, of Avada Kedavra_).


End file.
